VERY STRONG Annual Results, Record Rev / EBITDA / Guidance
I was the first sell-side equity analyst to cover this stock and this is the quarter I envisioned many years ago. Record Revenue and EBITDA, a 3.3% increase in gross margin with guidance that price increases that were negotiated in 2023 will continue to take effect in 2024.
However, I think the biggest (and most important part of the press release) are the iLottery / iGaming sales results that results that were $49M, up 54% year-over-year and growing quickly. When I was covering this stock years ago, I wrote that the future of PBL is their digital channel. The physical ticket business remains strong and consistent the but the profitability, EBITDA a cash flow growth will come from iGaming and we continue to see this very strong growth.
All of this is reflected in the substantial increase in the net profitability of the company which increased 63% from 19.3M to 31.4M. As the digital channels continue to grow very rapidly as they have just shown they are, Pollard will experience operating leverage like they have not experienced in the past. The meaningful increase in gross, operating and net income validates this.
The forward guidance was very positive and we will likely see prices increase as inflation moderates and begins to decrease. Despite a challenging operating enviornment in 2023 the company has posted record results and have given all indications that this is going to continue into 2024.
These metric confirm my previous valuation that I posted before and have now introduced the potential for significant upside.